1. Vampire Love

Words: Marriage, Hermitship, Flamboyancy, Grateful, Included

Karina

Hermitship is a synonym

for how our love will be.

Grateful you’re dead

that means forever you and me

I love your diamond skin

Flamboyancy included

I’m … waiting

for our irrevocable marriage.

Myriam

After my hermitship, I went for her hand in marriage.

Marriage to ensure that she would always be mine,

Blushing and grateful for it.

Marriage to her neck would be mine

Whenever I pleased (included, but not limited to her wonderful juicy artery)

but she declined my hand

said no, sweet as a virgin

said she’d been seduced

by a stable hand, charming in his flamboyancy

my vision turned red

no more could I see

so I killed them both

and never again did I pledge my soul to another

2. Being a Mummy

Words: Plague, Leaved, Vast, Installation, Mutually

Karina

My body’s an installation

with a great obligation

To plague those leaved

With my vast chest heaved

bandaged

mutually painful

for you and me

Myriam

The plague took me

The plague took you

The plague took us all

an installation on the

way to more, to more improved

To vast perfection

A dream shattered, forced,

gone terribly wrong

So here we stand

surrounded by gravestones and leaved willows

mutually mummiable

3. Brain Craving

Words: Die (noun, like “dice”), economically, stereo, cut, bullet

Karina

It’s hardly risky,

the game I play

A roll of the die

And I’ll gladly put a bullet in my …

well, If I had such a thing

I want it, crave it, need it

Yet economically it’s an impossibility.

Already had to cut my budget

Damn stereo

But soon, one day, those sweet, grey fat folds will be engulfed by me.

Myriam

Breath is no longer rationed

Not something to be thought of economically

The die rises

falls

The probability of us all biting the bullet inches ever higher.

No quiet, this steady rumble tumbling and

rough-housing its way through your body

Cutting through the silence,

if there ever was one

Our yell is one, stereo

A single cry shared by many

Our lust for brains unites us

Only this, and nothing more.

4. How to Die

Words: Postmaster, Acidic, Conniving, Upstage, Margarita

Karina

Hello all.

I’m the Postmaster,

and I want to tell you how to die.

Step 1: Mix your margarita with poison

’till it becomes acidic

Step 2: Maybe give it to your conniving wife

who’s always plotting for your alimony

Step 3: Upstage your neighbors’ Halloween decorations by doing Step 1 and 2 on the front lawn.

Myriam

Maybe a free fall, this time round?

From the Eiffel Towner,

Statue of Liberty

Something classy, anyhow

Maybe a margarita in a smoky bar somewhere south

with a beautiful woman’s smile turning acidic

across the table in front of you

May simply a fit of rage

A bullet to the brain

Nothing more conniving than this

Maybe a serial killer apprentice

A learner of the old ways

the ways of Jack the Ripper, Albert Fish

Trying to upstage Charles Manson because he

wasn’t hugged enough as a child

Or maybe a simple, swinging rope will be your downfall

Your failures cutting into

Your throat as you dangle

(She forgot Postmaster!)

5. Why I like Cemeteries

Words: Lumberjack, Interrogative, Squishy, Grist, Beautifying

Karina

The squishy lumberjack once told me:

Anna, Anna

Don’t go near the cemetery across the street.

Live near the dead and you will become them.

His tone so interrogative

I ignored him

Went across the street

Disobeyed

The taste in my mouth

was like grist

traveling down my throat.

Beautifying the death

within

That came out

Every time

I walked across

the street.

Myriam

This beautification is

All thanks to my mother

Abandonment is most poetic in a graveyard

Her last words to me, before she disappeared

out the gate and out of my life.

I live here, on grist and gruel

Learning obituaries with a hand stuck down my pants

This is not the the place for normalcy

For the squishy, cozy, apple pie life

This is the place for raping cross-dressing lumberjacks

Meeting interrogative stares

by constable women and

giving them flecked grins

This is no place for normalcy

This graveyard is a place for the living.

Hiraganaskjema

Dette var noe av det første jeg kikka på da jeg skulle lære meg japansk. Det første som traff meg var: er dette VIRKELIG et språk?

Det er slett ikke ment som en fornærmelse mot japansk. Det jeg vil fram til i denne bloggen er at dette er den første reaksjonen alle får når vi lærer et nytt språk. En slags: “srsly, kommuniserer millioner av mennesker sånn?” Det sjokket du fikk i fransktimen da læreren din fortalte deg at “ni” var “neuf,” og alle guttene i klassen lot som om de var griser hele perioden de lærte tall. Eller sjokket JEG fikk da jeg lærte at “six” var faktisk “seks” på norsk, og hvisket det til alle ungene på andretrinnet på min amerikanske skole, helt til jeg fikk kjeft fra læreren som sa jeg ikke måtte si sånne ord. “MEN DET ER NORSK!” prøvde jeg å forklare.

Det er merkelig for meg å tenke at millioner av mennesker har pugget 2000 tegn. Det er merkelig å tenke at i andre land sier de “hon” og ikke “bok”; “tomodachi” og ikke “venn.” For når man tenker seg om er egentlig ordene vi lærer helt tilfeldige. Et eller annet menneske har på et eller annet tidspunkt bestemt seg for at “venn” høres ut som en person man liker og henger mye med. Etterhvert som språket utvikler seg, streker grenene av ordet seg til nye ord der igjen. For eksempel det engelske “friend” strekker seg til både “acquaintance,” “buddy,” “chum,” “compatriot,” “comrade,” crony,” “homie,” “mate,” “pal,” etc. Et konsept får flere og flere nyanser med tiden. Noen av nyansene forsvinner også, såklart.

Jeg skjønte ikke helt hva frykten min angående japansk var med det første. Hver gang jeg skulle lære et nytt ord, måtte jeg spørre min japanske venninne (slash lærer). “Tomodachi, betyr det “venn”?” Et nikk. “Er du SIKKER? Hva om bare noen sier det?” Hun lo og syntes det var nokså absurd, og det skjønner jeg jo. Det satt allikevel noe igjen, og frykten ville liksom ikke gi seg før jeg hadde sett ordene skriftlig, eller hørt dem på CD o.l. Det var omtrent da jeg skjønte at det var SYSTEMET jeg ikke stolte helt på. At en person hadde bare lagd dette ordet som alle snakker og skriver og bruker til enhver tid. At det var menneskelaget.

Det var i psykolingvistikken at jeg lærte hvor fantastisk tilfeldig ord kan være. Det finnes ingen system for å kategorisere substantiv. De bare liksom ER der i alle språk FORDI. Det samme med kjønn: det varierer jo for hvert språk (som har dette trekket). Vi sier en måne, spansken sier una luna. Hvem vet hva dette kommer av?

Pga at språk er slike uforutsigbare menneskesystemer er det jo utrolig vanskelig å forske på og kategorisere dem. Det holder liksom ikke med JUST BECAUSE, selv om det som oftest er svaret. Jeg har ingen klart svar på hvordan man kan forklare dem, eller i det hele tatt stole på dem når man pugger nye språk. Det beste er vel å tenke at morsmålsbrukere vet best, og håpe på det beste.

PS. Morsom fakta: på mange språk betyr søndag og mandag akkurat det samme. “Sunday” kommer av Old English “Sunnandæg,” som betyr “dagen av sol.” Japansk har kanjien “日” som betyr sol i ordet “日曜日” (nichiyoubi). Så klart er da “søndag” også “soldagen.”

På spansk er mandag “lunes,” som kommer av “luna” (måne). På engelsk kommer ordet “monday” av “monandæg” (Old English), “dagen av måne.” Og på japansk brukes kanjien “月” som betyr måne i ordet mandag, som er da “月曜日” (getsuyoubi). Sist men ikke minst har vi “mandag,” som selvfølgelig kommer av ordet “måne.” Kult, eller hva?

“Some chips, yeah?” he said, slightly puzzled.

“Thank you so much for the lovely cookies in the room,” I told my B & B host this morning.

“Cookies? You mean the biscuits?” An equally puzzled look.

“How much is this bag of chips?” I asked the cashier at Boots. “OH NEVER MIND.”

… I’m truly in another country. And speaking the language doesn’t seem to help. But on to more important things!

*

In order to qualify for the Master’s of English language, all students MUST take an older English history course. I was torn between a lot of subjects (not really tempted to take any of them, to be honest), but chose “Chaucer and the Manuscript Tradition,” after toying between that or taking a crash course in Old English. I had no idea who Chaucer was, what manuscript paper is made of or what Middle English looked like. I also thought it would be an extremely boring and irrelevant course. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Chaucer is an old English poet. Really old. He’s from around the 14th century. When I first studied British history and literature, my logic was this: Victorian literature is extremely prim and proper, so the further back you go, the more conservative and boring it gets. Wrong. Before the Victorian period, the English were apparently known for having very … scatological humor. Chaucer writes about men farting in each others’ faces. He writes about women who talk about how great it is having sex with many men. He writes about scholars who device crazy postapocalyptic plots to just get laid. The list goes on. My point is that it was only for a very short time frame that the Brits had (what I would consider), boring, slow-paced literature. Middle English literature is pretty frickin’ awesome.

My second largest shock was finding out how manuscripts were made. England wasn’t very fond of paper in the 1300s. In fact, instead of using it, they would use … ANIMALS. Each sheet of paper (equivalent to ca four pages) is one entire calf. A large manuscript, like old bibles, could easily take hundreds of animals to produce. Scribes would have to transcribe the bibles for endless hours with perfect calligraphy. Just thinking about the amount of work to make one single manuscript is staggering. No wonder there are so few of them.

The Wife of Bath. Made out of animal skin. Can you tell the difference?

I was really uncomfortable at the thought of that holding one book is equal to hundreds of lives. When I read about how manuscript paper is made (IN DETAIL), I had vividly imagined the thick skin and fur. Yet when I finally touched a manuscript this morning, I could barely tell the difference between it and a normal piece of paper.

But what does all of this have to do with Cambridge?

During our course, our professor told us that we had to take a trip to Cambridge to see some real manuscripts before we could complete the course. She told us that some scholars of manuscripts haven’t even seen a real manuscript, so if a student was lucky enough to get the chance, they should take it. After reading about manuscripts for 3 weeks, I realized that feeling a manuscript would put all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together, and was ok about sacrificing my weekend (well ok, only my Sunday) to go on a two-day trip to see real manuscripts. Our professor arranged everything so that we could see some of the most valuable manuscripts in the world.

A version of The Canterbury Tales. Located at Cambridge University Library.

How do I see a real English manuscript?

First of all, you don’t. Unless you have a kind professor and are REALLY lucky. We’ll take it from there. In order to get into a library that has such a manuscript, you need a card, even for just ten minutes. It has your full ID on it, birth date and everything. Then, you need a plastic bag, so everyone will know your contents (giggle) at all times. When walking into the manuscript part of the library (which is separate) you need to tell them your name and address and are only allowed to bring certain things into the room. Pens aren’t allowed, for one. But hey, they sell pencils. You ask for a certain manuscript and the librarian will bring it to you personally. There are special pillows for the books, since you can’t open them directly on the table. There are also special heavy cords that you put on either side of books, so you don’t touch the page when you’re looking at a particular page. It’s a very serious business. When we were at the library, there were about 4 – 9 people in the room examining manuscripts, typing furiously notes on their laptops and looking dead serious. Pretty cool, huh?

A very VERY brief history of the English Manuscript

This paragraph is for those of you who think English is a really old and powerful language. Or maybe it’s for those of you who hate the thought of English as a really old and powerful language.

The first English manuscript appeared in ca 800 A.D. Up until about the time of the Norman Conquest (1066), Norwegians and Englishmen pretty much spoke the same language. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that we frequently visited our neighbor to gas up and mooch off of (read: pillage and rape). Then the French came and ruined the gig.

With the arrival of the French, the arrival of Latin was inevitable. Everything was written in Latin, and it quickly established itself as the language of the Church, the noblemen and scholars. Nobody was interested in writing in English. It was considered to be the language of peasants, and anyone worth their salt knew how to communicate in Latin or French. Chaucer was very rare in this sense. He was a nobleman who wrote poems, and for reasons unknown decided to write all of his poetry in Middle English.

Then a man named John Wycliffe came along and decided that English should be for everyone. He made a very controversial copy of the bible (ca 1382), translating the entire bible to English for the first time ever. It was banned by the church, probably because they were afraid that peasants would start learning Christianity without the help of the Catholic Church, find a grain of autonomy in their own lives and thus create anarchy. But with this manuscript came hope and pride in the English language. And as Latin began dwindling and the print came to England, Latin slowly was replaced by English.

On the whole, the English manuscript tradition isn’t that great compared to other languages. We have no tradition for illustrations, there was no norm for spelling, and a lot of manuscripts were composite books (lots of unrelated manuscripts slapped together in one bind).

 Enough boring history, A bit about Cambridge:

I’m extremely tired, but I’ll try to write a bit about Cambridge. Today we were at Corpus Christi College:

Would you see this at the University of Oslo? HAHAHA.

We also went shopping today … at the pharmacy. For some reason they’ve turned the concept “pharmacy” here to a weird mall for sick people. They even have a food section.

There are lots of Asian restaurants and food stores in Cambridge. It’s an odd combination of “ooo quaint building,” “oo sushi bar,” “oo quaint building,” “ooo Indian restaurant.”

Also I couldn’t resist taking a bizarre picture of these swans swimming in a line in an extremely dirty pond:

Too cute!

Ok, I really have to go to bed now. Tomorrow we are going to St. John’s College, and then taking a plane home! Tata for now.

PS. I miss Norwegian breakfast. And I seriously miss Norwegian water. Sparkling cream soda just isn’t the same.